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A new voice for labour in a world of precarious work

The Urban Workers Project seeks to mobilize young professionals in freelance, part-time, and contract jobs and lobby for better protection.

Joan Lillian Wilson, (left), Stephanie Nakitsas (centre right) and Mira Etlin-Stein (right) have joined a new support group called the Urban Workers Project founded by former NDP MP Andrew Cash (centre left) for young precarious workers. (Melissa Renwick / Toronto Star) | Order this photo

There’s no easy way to summarize what 26-year-old Joan Lillian Wilson does for a living, other than to say it involves a lot of slashes: graphic designer/photographer/activist. Part-time/contract/volunteer. No union/benefits/pension.

Sound familiar? Then you, too, might be a part of the city’s invisible workforce. It’s composed of independent contractors, part-time employees, self-employed entrepreneurs, and creative types — a hitherto disparate group that Toronto activists are now seeking to unite.

“There is a huge group of people who aren’t being spoken to right now. So we are hoping to be a place for those people who are kind of outside of the political system,” says organizer and communications consultant Stephanie Nakitsas, who is starting the Urban Workers Project with former NDP MP Andrew Cash.

The project, which launches Tuesday, hopes to bring together and advocate for workers who, until now, had no obvious way to connect — a demographic that, for many years, fell outside the scope of traditional union structures and often has little protection under the law.

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“We just in general need to start looking at public policy through the lens of precarious work — how do we build a new foundation that supports all workers,” says Cash, who fought for better legislation for interns and precarious workers during his time representing the riding of Toronto-Davenport.

Around half of all jobs in the GTA and Hamilton are now insecure, according to research by United Way and McMaster University. Young people entering the workforce increasingly find there is little in the way of stable employment on offer, Cash adds.

Mira Etlin-Stein, who is about to give birth to her first child, says while the newly configured world of work offers young people flexibility and freedom, the stress associated with chronic instability can also be crippling.

“I’m happy I’m doing what I’m doing because I love it and I think it’s really meaningful,” says the 31-year-old occupational therapist, who started her own business called Dream Weavers to help people with disabilities and mental health issues. “But I didn’t graduate and think, this is what my life is going to be. I do so much for free all the time, work such long hours, and don’t have any benefits.”

Etlin-Stein says she believes entrepreneurial endeavours like her own are driving her field forward. But those who take on the risk of striking out on their own face often insurmountable hurdles, like lack of affordable housing and child care.

“This is the holistic way we’re looking at these solutions,” says Nakitsas. “I think we need to be creative because our system was built when work was different and I think that’s one of the fundamental things we’re trying to draw attention to.”

One of the project’s first campaigns will be to lobby for more rights for independent contractors, who currently have no protection under Ontario’s Employment Standards Act. The group hopes to feed into the provincial government’s current review of its employment and labour laws, giving young urban workers a say in the process.

“We want to try and help Canadians understand the new reality of work for the majority of new workers in the Canadian economy today,” says Cash, who was a writer and musician before entering politics. “We feel we can add a voice to that conversation.”

Some unions have already launched similar outreach efforts: private-sector union Unifor, for example, has an organization for Canadian freelancers in the media. While the Urban Workers Project is not affiliated with a union and does not intend to serve as one, Cash says he hopes the group can build bridges with like-minded movements.

“Labour is doing some good work in certain sectors,” Cash says, speaking from an airy industrial warehouse-turned-café at Bloor and Lansdowne. “The new reality of work is so diverse and disparate — this coffee shop right now is a workplace. That’s very hard for traditional organizing.”

But where there is challenge, says Nakitsas, there is also opportunity.

“I think it is exciting. Whenever we bring this up in a coffee shop, people are like ‘yes, I want to be a part of something. I want to fight to make things better.’ ”

Life in the gig economy:

The organizers of the Urban Workers Project talk about what they’ve observed of the world of precarious work — the so-called gig economy.

Stephanie Nakitsas, 31

Campaigns organizer and freelance communications consultant:

“I think a lot of us love what we do and we love this kind of work, and the freedom that comes with it, and the fact that I can spend time with my 2-year-old daughter. But there’s big downsides to not knowing what’s coming in six months, not having parental leave, not having income security between projects or basically any workplaces rights.”

Mira Etlin-Stein, 31

Occupational therapist:

“A lot of my colleagues or peers got jobs outside the Toronto area that required a long drive to get to work and commute. I didn’t have a car so that was not an option for me. There weren’t a lot of jobs on the subway line in Toronto. I probably applied to 50 or 60 jobs really carefully and with a lot of thought and effort, and I think I had one interview. A lot of them weren’t even in an area I was interested in . . . I actually had to move back in with my parents because I couldn’t support myself.”

Joan Lillian Wilson, 26

Graphic designer and photographer:

“A lot of my friends have master’s degrees and they’re also doing a lot of part-time jobs and multiple jobs, whereas I’m sure they would also love the security of having a full-time position. And although a lot of the work they’re doing is unpaid, they’re still contributing so much to the community in the work that they do . . . But they don’t have that stability.”

Andrew Cash, 54

Writer, musician, and former NDP MP for Toronto-Davenport:

“I think for a lot people who are working in the arts and culture sector, or in the knowledge economy generally — the tech sector, the not-for-profit sector — these are all jobs that are part-time, contract, freelance, self-employed. And they don’t come with any of these supports. We live in increasingly expensive cities and we have to make some changes. We have to talk to about (the issues) as we are now, and connect people to each other, and build a bigger voice.”

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